[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D.W.]

THE SATYRICON OF PETRONIUS ARBITER

Complete and unexpurgated translation by W. C. Firebaugh, in which are incorporated the forgeries of Nodot and Marchena, and the readings introduced into the text by De Salas.

SIX NOTES BY MARCHENA.

TO THE ARMY OF THE RHINE.

The conquests of the French have resulted, during this war, in a boon toknowledge and to letters. Egypt has furnished us with monuments of itsaboriginal inhabitants, which the ignorance and superstition of the Coptsand Mussulmans kept concealed from civilized countries. The libraries ofthe convents of the various countries have been ransacked by savants andprecious manuscripts have been brought to light.

By no means the least interesting of the acquisitions is a fragment ofPetronius, which we offer to the public, taken from an ancient manuscriptwhich our soldiers, in conquering St. Gall, have sent to us forexamination. We have made an important discovery in reading a parchmentwhich contains the work of St. Gennadius on the Duties of Priests, andwhich, judging from the form of the letters employed, we should say waswritten in the eleventh century. A most careful examination led us toperceive that the work by this saint had been written on pages containingwritten letters, which had been almost effaced. We know that in the darkages it was customary to write ecclesiastical works on the manuscriptscontaining the best authors of Latinity.

At a cost of much labor we have been able to decipher a morsel which wegive to the public: and of the authenticity of which there can be nodoubt. We render homage to the brave French army to which we owe thisacquisition.

It is easy to notice that there is a lacuna in that passage of Petroniusin which Encolpius is left with Quartilla, looking through a chink in thedoor, at the actions of Giton and little Pannychis. A few lines below,it relates, in effect, that he was fatigued by the voluptuous enjoymentof Quartilla, and in that which remains to us, there is no mention of thepreliminaries to this enjoyment. The style of the Latin so closelyresembles the original of Petronius that it is impossible to believe thatthe fragment was forged.

For the benefit of those who have not read the author, it is well tostate that this Quartilla was a priestess of Priapus, at whose house theycelebrated the mysteries of that god. Pannychis is a young girl of sevenyears who had been handed over to Giton to be deflowered. This Giton isthe "good friend" of Encolpius, who is supposed to relate the scene.Encolpius, who had drunk an aphrodisiacal beverage, is occupied withQuartilla in peeping through the door to see in what manner Giton wasacquitting himself in his role. At that moment a soldier enters thehouse.

Finally an old woman, about whom there is some question in the fragment,is the same as the one who had unexpectedly conducted Encolpius to thehouse of the public women and of whom mention is made in the beginning ofthe work.

Vous verrez que vous avez affaire a un homme. You will learn that you have to deal with a man.

Fighting men have in all times been distinguished on account of thebeauty of their women. The charming fable of the loves of Venus andMars, described by the most ancient of poets, expresses allegorically,this truth. All the demi-gods had their amorous adventures; the mostvaliant were always the most passionate and the happiest. Hercules tookthe maidenheads of fifty girls, in a single night. Thesus loved athousand beauties, and slept with them. Jason abandoned Hypsipyle forMedea, and her, for Creusa. Achilles, the swift of foot, forgot thetender Deidamia in the arms of his Briseis.

It has been remarked that the lovers did not have very scrupulous tastesin their methods of attaining satisfaction from the women they loved.The most common method was abduction and the women always submitted tothis without a murmur of any sort. Helen was carried off by Theseus,after having also been abducted by Paris. The wife of Atreus wasabducted by Thyestus, and from that arose the implacable hatred betweenthe two families. Rape was no less common. Goddesses themselves and thefavorites of the Gods were at the risk of falling prey to strong mortals.Pirithous, aided by Theseus, even attempted to snatch Proserpina from theGod of the under-world. Juno herself was compelled to painful submissionto the pursuit of Ixion, and Thetis succumbed despite herself, to theassaults of Peleus. The gift of foretelling the future, with whichApollo endowed Cassandra, did not insure her against the brutal caressesof Ajax, son of Oileus.

In the infancy of society, there was never known any other distinctionexcept between the weak and the strong: the strong commanded and the weakobeyed. For that reason, women were regarded in the light of beingsdestined by nature, to serve the pleasures and even the caprices of men.Never did her suitors express a tender thought for Penelope, and, insteadof making love to her, they squandered her property, slept with herslaves, and took charge of things in her house.

Circe gave herself to Ulysses who desired to slay her, and Calypso, fullblown goddess as she was, was obliged to make his advances for him. Thefine sentiments that Virgil puts into the mouth of the shade of Creusa,content with having died while serving against the Greeks, "she was aTrojan, and she wedded the son of Venus"; the confession with whichAndromache, confronted by the murderer of her first husband, responds tothe question of AEneas; these ideas, I say, and these sentiments,appertained to the polished century of Augustus and not to the epoch or,scene of the Trojan War. Virgil, in his AEneid, had never subscribed tothe precepts of Horace, and of common sense:

Aut famam sequere, aut sibi convenientia finge Horace Ars Poet. 119.

From this manner of dealing with women arose another reason for thepossession of beauty by the valiant. One coveted a woman much as onewould covet a fine flock of sheep, and, in the absence of laws, the onein possession of either the one or the other of these desirable objectswould soon be dispossessed of them if he was not courageous enough toguard them against theft. Wars were as much enterprises for ravishingwomen as they were for taking other property, and one should rememberthat Agamemnon promised to retire from before Troy if the Trojans wouldrestore Helen and his riches to Menelaus; things which Paris haddespoiled him of.

Also, there was never any of that thing we call "conjugal honor" amongthe Greeks; that idea was far too refined; it was a matter too complexever to have entered the heads of these semi-barbarous people. This isexemplified in the fact that, after the taking of Troy, Helen, who had,of her own free will, belonged successively to Paris, and to Deiphobus,afterwards returned to Menelaus, who never offered her any reproach.That conduct of Menelaus was so natural that Telemachus, who, in his tripto Sparta found Helen again with Menelaus, just as she was before herabduction, did not show the least astonishment.

The books which bear the most remarkable resemblance to each other arethe Bible and Homer, because the people they describe and the men aboutwhom they speak are forerunners of civilization in pretty much the samedegree. Sarah was twice snatched from the bosom of Abraham and he wasnever displeased with his wife and continued to live on good terms withher. David, a newcomer on the throne, hastened to have Michol brought tohim although she had already married another man.

The best proof that, during the time of the Romans the women preferredsoldiers to other men is in the claims to successful enterprises by thebragging soldier of Plautus. Pyrgopolinices thought it was onlynecessary to pose as a great warrior, to have all the women chasing afterhim; therefore, his parasite and his slave spoke of nothing but thepassions be inspired in women. Tradition has it that among the Samnites,the bravest men had the choice of the fairest women, and to this customis attributed one of the reasons these people were so warlike.

In the times of chivalry the greatest exploits were achieved for thepleasure of one's Lady-Love, and there were even such valiant knights, asDon Quixote, who went about the world proving by force of arms that theirladies had no peer. The poverty-stricken troubadours singingharmoniously about their beautiful women found them flying away in thearms of knights who had broken lances at tournaments, or had performedthe greatest feats of arms. In fine, all the peoples of the world havesaid with Dryden:

The profession of Quartilla corresponded to that which is followed byour ladies of the Palace Royal. This Palace Royal is a sort of Babylon,with this difference; that the former prostitute themselves all the yearround, and that they are not quite so attractive as the Chaldeanbeauties. For the rest, one of the incontestable facts of ancienthistory is this prostitution of the women of Babylon in honor of Venus,and I cannot understand why Voltaire refused to believe it, sincereligions have always been responsible for the most abominable actions,and because religious wars, the horrors of intolerance, the impostures ofpriests, the despotism of kings, the degradation and stupidity of thepeople, have been the direct fatal effects of religions; and seeing thatthe blind fanaticism of martyrs and the brutal cruelty of tyrants is ahundred times more deplorable than a sacrifice equally agreeable to thevictim and to the one who officiates at the sacrifice; and seeing thatthe enjoyment and giving of life is no less holy than the maceration andcaging of innocent animals.

The origin of courtesans is lost in the deepest antiquity. It appearsthat it was one of the patriarchal customs to enjoy them, for Judah sleptwith Thamar, widow of his two sons, and who, to seduce him, disguisedherself as a courtesan. Another courtesan, Rahab, played a great role inthe first wars of the people of the Lord: it was this same Rahab whomarried Solomon, father of Boaz, fourth forefather of David, andthirty-second forefather of Jesus Christ, our divine Savior. Yet theeternal sagacity of man has failed to take notice of this profession andto resent the injustice done it by the scorn of men. The elected kingsof the people, the man who adopts the word father according to theflesh, are descendants of a courtesan.

For the rest, it must be admitted that many who follow this nobleprofession are unworthy of it and only too well justify the ignominywhich is levelled against the entire class. You see these miserablecreatures with livid complexions and haggard eyes, with voices ofStentor, breathing out at the same time the poisons which circulate intheir veins and the liquors with which they are intoxicated; you see ontheir blemished and emaciated bodies, the marks of beings more hideousthan they (twenty come to satisfy their brutal passions for every one ofthem); you listen to their vile language, you hear their oaths andrevolting expressions: to go to these Megeres is often to encounterbrigands and assassins: what a spectacle! It is the deformity of vicein the rags of indigence.

Ah! But these are not courtesans, they are the dregs of cities. Acourtesan worthy of the name is a beautiful woman, gracious and amiable,at whose home gather men of letters and men of the world; the firstmagistrates, the greatest captains: and who keeps men of all professionsin a happy state of mind because she is pleasing to them, she inspires inthem a desire for reciprocal pleasure: such an one was Aspasia who, afterhaving charmed the cultured people of Athens was for a long time the goodcompanion of Pericles, and contributed much, perhaps, towards making hiscentury what it was, the age of taste in arts and letters. Such anone also was Phryne, Lais, Glycera, and their names will always becelebrated; such, also, was Ninon d'Enclos, one of the ornaments ofthe century of Louis XIV, and Clairon, the first who realized all thegrandeur of her art; such an one art thou, C-----, French Thalia, whocommands attentions, I do not say this by way of apology but to share theopinion of Alceste.

A courtesan such as I have in mind may have all the public and privatevirtues. One knows the severe probity of Ninon, her generosity, hertaste for the arts, her attachment to her friends. Epicharis, the soulof the conspiracy of Piso against the execrable Nero, was a courtesan,and the severe Tacitus, who cannot be taxed with a partiality forgallantry, has borne witness to the constancy with which she resisted themost seductive promises and endured the most terrible tortures, withoutrevealing any of the details of the conspiracy or any of the names of theconspirators.

These facts should be recognized above that ascetic moral idea whichconsists of the sovereign virtue of abstinence in defiance of nature'scommands and which places weakness in these matters along with the mostodious crimes. Can one see without indignation Suetonius' reproach ofCaesar for his gallantries with Servilia, with Tertia, and other Romanladies, as a thing equal to his extortions and his measureless ambitions,and praising his warlike ardor against peoples who had never furnishedroom for complaint to Rome? The source of these errors was the theory ofemanations. The first dreamers, who were called philosophers imaginedthat matter and light were co-eternal; they supposed that was all oneunformed and tenebrous mass; and from the former they established theprinciple of evil and of all imperfection, while they regarded the latteras sovereign perfection. Creation, or, one might better sayco-ordination, was only the emanation of light which penetrated chaos,but the mixture of light and matter was the cause of all the inevitableimperfections of the universe. The soul of man was part and parcel ofdivinity or of increased light; it would never attain happiness until itwas re-united to the source of all light; but for it, we would be freefrom all things we call gross and material, and we would be taken intothe ethereal regions by contemplation and by abstinence from thepleasures of the flesh. When these absurdities were adopted for theregulation of conduct, they necessarily resulted in a fierce morality,inimical to all the pleasures of life, such, in a word, as that of theGymnosophists or, in a lesser measure, of the Trappists.

But despite the gloomy nonsense of certain atrabilious dreamers, thewonderful era of the Greeks was that of the reign of the courtesans.It was about the houses of these that revolved the sands of Pactolus,their fame exceeded that of the first men of Greece. The rich offeringsthat decorated the temples of the Gods were the gifts of these women,and it must be remembered that most of them were foreigners, originating,for the most part, in Asia Minor. It happened that an Athenianfinancier, who resembled the rest of his tribe as much as two drops ofwater, proposed once to levy an impost upon the courtesans. As he spokeeloquently of the incalculable advantages which would accrue to theGovernment by this tax, a certain person asked him by whom the courtesanswere paid. "By the Athenians," replied our orator, after deliberation."Then it would be the Athenians who would pay the impost," replied thequestioner, and the people of Athens, who had a little more sense thancertain legislative assemblies, hooted the orator down, and there wasnever any more question about a tax upon courtesans.

Corinth was famous for the number and beauty of its courtesans, fromwhich comes the proverb: "It is not given to every man to go to Corinth";there they ran the risk of losing their money and ruining their health.The cause of this great vogue of courtesans in Greece was not thesupposed ugliness of the sex, as the savant Paw imagined, andcontradicted by the unanimous evidence of ancient authors and of moderntravellers; but rather, the retired and solitary life which the women ofthe country led. They lived in separate apartments and never had anycommunication with the streets or with the residences of men "the innerpart of the house which was called the women's apartments," saidCornelius Nepos (preface). Strangers never visited them; they rarelyvisited their nearest relations. This was why marriage between brothersand sisters was authorized by law and encouraged by usage; the sisterswere exposed to the attacks of their brothers because they livedseparated from them.

With the Romans, as with us, the virtuous women corrupted somewhat theprofession of the courtesans. The absolute seclusion of women was neverthe fashion at Rome and the stories we have on the authority of ValeriusMaximus on the chastity and modesty of the first Roman matrons merit thesame degree of belief as the legend of Romulus and Remus being brought upby a wolf, the rape of Lucretia or the tragic death of Virginia. On thecontrary, in Livy, a great admirer of the customs of the early days ofRome, we find that in those times a great number of Roman women of thenoblest families were convicted of having poisoned their husbands andcondemned to death for this hideous crime: that, by no means shows a veryexquisite and tender conjugal sentiment. During the period of the secondPunic War with what energy they went about the city seeking the repeal ofthe law which took out of their hands the custody of jewels and preciousstones! A repeal which they obtained despite the opposition of Cato theCensor. It appears that the profession of the courtesan was generallypractised by the freed-women; their manner necessarily showed the resultsof their education. But the young sparks of Rome never paid muchattention to them, they preferred to have love affairs with the wives oftheir friends. For one Sallust who ruined himself with freedwomen, therewere five Cupienniuses; "Cupiennius, that admirer of the pudenda garbedin white," Hor. Sat. I, ii, 36. Delia, Lesbia, Ipsythillia, Corinna,Nemesis, Neeria, Cynthia, Sulpitia, Lycimnia, and almost all the women towhom, under real or assumed names, Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius, Ovid,Horace, and others, addressed their erotic compositions, were Romanmarried women. Horace is the only one who celebrated a freedwoman insome of his odes. This is due, however, to his taste for variety andperhaps also, to his birth, for he himself was the son of a freedwoman.Ovid's Art of Love and the Satires of Juvenal reveal the extent to whichgallantry was the fashion at Rome and Cato would never have praised theconduct of that young man who had recourse to a public house if that hadbeen an ordinary course of procedure.

In Europe of the middle ages, the priests and abbots helped to someextent in reviving the profession of the courtesans. Long before, SaintPaul had stated in his Epistles that it was permitted to the apostlesof the Lord to take with them everywhere a sister for charity. Thedeaconesses date from the first century of the church. But the celibacyof the clergy was not universally and solidly established until about theeleventh century, under the pontificate of Gregory VII. During thepreceding century, the celebrated Marozie and Theodore had put theirlovers successively upon the chair of St. Peter, and their sons andgrandsons, as well. But after the priests had submitted to celibacy theyostensibly took the concubines of which, alas! our housekeepers of todayare but feeble vestiges. The Spanish codes of the middle ages were oftenconcerned with the rights of the concubines of priests (mancebas de losclerigos) and these chosen ones of the chosen ones of the Lord invariablyappeared worthy of envy. Finally the courtesans appeared in all theirmagnificence in the Holy City, and modern Rome atoned for the rebuffs andindignities these women had been compelled to endure in ancient Rome.The princes of the church showered them with gifts, they threw at theirfeet the price of redemption from sin, paid by the faithful, and the ageof Leo X was for Rome a wonderful epoch of fine arts, belles lettres, andbeautiful women. But a fanatical monk from Lower Germany fell upon thiscalm of the church and this happy era of the harlots; since then therevenues of the sacred college have continued to decrease, the beautifulcourtesans have abandoned the capital of the Christian world, and theirpleasures have fled with them. And can anyone longer believe in theperfection of the human race, since the best, the most holy of humaninstitutions has so visibly degenerated!

III.

Le Soldat ordonne a embasicetas de m'accabler de ses impurs baisers.

The soldier ordered the catamite to beslaver me with his stinking kisses.

One of the reasons which caused the learned and paradoxical Hardouin toassert that all the works which have been attributed to the ancients,with the exception of the Georgics and the Natural History of Pliny, werethe compositions of monks, was doubtless the very frequent repetition ofscenes of love for boys, which one notices in most of these writings:this savant was a Jesuit. But this taste is not peculiar to convents; itis to be found among all peoples and in all climates; its origin is lostin the night of the centuries; it is common in the most polished nationsand it is common among savage tribes. Profound philosophers have arguedin favor of it; poets have sung the objects of this sort of love in theirtender and passionate compositions, and these compositions have alwaysbeen the delight of posterity. What stupid or unfeeling reader can readwithout emotion that beautiful eclogue of Virgil where Corydon sighs hishopeless love for the beautiful Alexis? The most passionate ode ofHorace is that one in which he complains of the harshness of Ligurinus.The tender Tibullus, deceived by his Marathus, brings tears to all whohave hearts. The delicate Anacreon, praising his Bathylle, and thevaliant Alceus giving himself up after his labors in war to sing of thedark eyes and black hair of Lycus . . . "with dark eyes and black hairbeautiful." It is not to over-civilized refinements of society which,according to certain misanthropists, degrade nature and corrupt it, thatthis taste is due; it is found among the south sea islanders, and theevidence of the first Spaniards attests that it was common among thehordes of American Indians before the discovery of the new world. Pawhad attempted to explain this as resulting from defects in the formationof the organs of pleasure among the natives; but a peculiar cause is notsufficient explanation for a universal effect.

At the time of the Patriarchs, Greek love was so general that in the fourcities, Sodom, Gomorrah, Adama, and Seboim, it was impossible to find tenmen exempt from the contagion; that number would have sufficed, said theLord, to withhold the punishment which he inflicted upon those cities.

It should be noted here that most of the assertions about the morals ofthe Israelites which are to be found in the Erotica Biblon of Mirabeauare either false or pure guesswork. It is a bizarre method of judgingthe morals of a people, that of taking their legal code and inferringthat the people were accustomed to break all the laws which are forbiddenby that code. Nevertheless, that is the method which the author of theErotica Biblon adopts for portraying the morals of the Jewish people.Again, he has not even understood this code; he has believed that the lawagainst giving one's seed to the idol Moloch meant giving the humansemen; and he is ignorant of the fact that this seed, as spoken of in theBible, means the children and descendants. Thus it is that the land ofCanaan is promised to the seed of Abraham, and the perpetuity of thereign on Sion to that of David. Moloch was a Phoenician deity, the sameone to which, in Carthage, they sacrificed children; the Romans believedhim to be a reincarnation of their Saturn, but Saturn was an Etruscandivinity who could never have had any connection with the Gods ofPhoenicia. He (Mirabeau) has translated "those who polluted the temple"as meaning those who were guilty of some obscenity in the temple; and hedoes not know that the temple was "polluted" by a thousand acts, declaredimpure by law, and which were not obscene. The entrance of a woman intoa sacred place, less than forty days after her accouchement, or theentrance of a man who had touched an impure animal, constituted apollution of the House of the Lord. When one wishes to make a parade oferudition he should make some attempt to understand the things which hepretends to make clear to others. Or is it that this Mirabeau was merelycareless?

The love of boys was so thoroughly the fashion in Greece that we havetoday given it the name "Greek Love." Orestes was regarded as the "goodfriend" of Pylades and Patroclus as the lover of Achilles. In thistaste, the Gods set the example for mortals, and the abduction ofGanymede for the service of the master of thunder, was not the leastcause for annoyance given the chaste but over-prudish Juno. Lastly,Hercules was not content with the loves of Omphale and Dejanira, he alsoloved the beautiful Hylas, who was brought up by the nymphs.

The Greeks boasted, without blushing, of this love, which they consideredthe only passion worthy of men, and they did blush at loving a woman,intimacy with whom, they said, only rendered her adorers soft andeffeminate. In the Dialogue of Plato, entitled "The Banquet," which isconcerned entirely with discussions of the various forms of love, theydismiss love for women as unworthy of occupying the attention of sensiblemen. One of the speakers, I believe it was Aristophanes, explaining thecause of this fire which we kindle in the bosoms of our loved ones,affirms that the first men were doubles which multiplied their force andtheir power. This, they abused and, as punishment, Jupiter struck themwith lightning and separated them. By their love for each other theycame together again to regain their primitive state. But the effeminatessought out only the women because they were only half men, half women;while those whose tastes were masculine and courageous wanted to becomedouble men again.

Phedre has put into the mouth of AEsop an explanation of that love whichwould certainly not have been relished by the Greeks. He says that whilePrometheus was occupied with modelling his man and woman, he was invitedto a feast given by Jupiter, to the Gods; he came back intoxicated and,by mistake, applied the sexual parts of one to the body of the other.

For the rest, the Greeks were all in accord in their profound contemptfor women. The theatrical writers, especially, who studied moreparticularly the general opinions and catered to them in order to obtainthe applause of the public, were distinguished by their bitternessagainst the sex. Euripides maintained that Prometheus deserved to bechained to Mount Caucasus with the vulture gnawing at his entrails,because he had fashioned a being so pernicious and hateful as woman. Theshade of Agamemnon, in the Odyssey advised Ulysses not to put any faithin Penelope and did not stop talking until he had enumerated the entirelist of the vices of the sex. The first Latin authors imitated theGreeks in their invectives against women; the comedies of Plautus,especially, teem with virulent attacks upon them.

At Rome, however, the great freedom permitted to women, soon broughtabout other opinions in regard to them; they often played an importantrole in public and private affairs, and the men convinced themselvesthat, like men, women were capable of the greatest crimes and of the mostheroic virtues. The noble stoicism of Arria is not the only example ofcourageous virtue displayed by the Roman women at a time when crownedmonsters governed the empire. The young Paulina opened her veins withher husband, the philosopher, Seneca; Mallonia preferred to die intorments rather than give herself up to the odious he-goat of Capri.Who does not admire the noble independence, the conjugal love, and thematronly virtues of Agrippina, the wife of Germanicus?

Moreover, men began to avow their love for women, and we have hereoccasion to observe the rapid progress of gallantry among the Romans.However, the love for boys was no less universally in vogue in Rome, andCicero charges, in his letters to Atticus, that the judges who had soscandalously white-washed Clodius of the accusation of having profanedthe mysteries of the "Good Goddess," had been publicly promised thefavors of the most illustrious women and the finest young men of thefirst families. Caesar himself, in his early youth had yielded to theembraces of Nicomedes, King of Bithynia; moreover, after his triumph overthe Gauls, on the solemn occasion when it was customary to twit thevictor with all his faults, the soldiers sang: "Caesar subdued the Gauls,Nicomedes subdued Caesar. But Caesar who subdued the Gauls, triumphed,and Nicomedes, who subdued Caesar did not." Cato said of him that he wasloved by the King, in his youth and that, when he was older, he loved thequeen and, one day, in the senate, while he was dwelling on I know notwhat request of the daughter of Nicomedes, and recounting the benefitswhich Rome owed to that monarch, Cicero silenced him by replying: "Weknow very well what he has given, and what thou hast given him!" Atlast, during the time when the first triumvirate divided all the power,a bad joker remarked to Pompey: "I salute thee, O King," and, addressingCaesar, "I salute thee, O Queen!" His enemies maintained that he was thehusband of all the women and the wife of all the husbands. Catullus, whodetested him, always called him "the bald catamite," in his epigrams: heset forth that his friendship with Mamurra was not at all honorable; hecalled this Mamurra "pathicus," a name which they bestowed upon those wholooked for favors among mature men or among men who had passed the stageof adolescence.

The masters of the empire never showed any hesitancy in trying and evenin overdoing the pleasures which all their subjects permitted themselves.Alas! A crown is such a weighty burden! The road of domination isstrewn with so many briars that one would never be able to pass down itif he did not take care that they were pressed down under the roses. TheRoman emperors adopted that plan; they longed for pleasures and they tookthe pleasures which offered themselves without delay and in a spirit ofcompetition. Caligula was so little accustomed to waiting that, whileoccupied in offering a sacrifice to the Gods, and the figure of a priesthaving pleased him, he did not take time to finish the sacred ceremoniesbefore taking his pleasure of him.

A remarkable thing is that among almost all peoples, the baths are theplaces where the prostitution of men by their own sex is the most common.We see in Catullus that the "cinaedi" (catamites), a noun which my chastepen refuses to translate into French, haunted the baths incessantly tocarry out their practices. Among the Orientals, of all modern peopleswho have retained this taste most generally, this same fact holds good.It was at the bath that Tiberius, impotent through old age anddebauchery, was made young again by the touch little children applied tohis breasts; these children he called "'little fishes," they sucked hiswithered breasts, his infected mouth, his livid lips, and finally hisvirile parts. Hideous spectacle of a tyrant disgraced by nature andstruggling against her maledictions! But in vain did he invent newpleasures, in vain did he take part in these scenes in which groups ofyoung men by threes and fours assumed all sorts of lascivious postures,and were at the same time active and passive; the sight of theseindulgences of the "sprintriae" (for that is the name which was giventhere) did not enable him to resuscitate his vigor any more than theglamor of the throne or the servile submission of the senate served tomitigate his remorse.

But of all the emperors, the ones who carried their taste for young boysto the greatest lengths were, Nero, Domitian and Hadrian. The firstpublicly wedded the young eunuch Sporus, whom he had had operated upon sothat he might serve him like a young woman. He paid court to the boy ashe would to a woman and another of his favorites dressed himself up in aveil and imitated the lamentations which women were accustomed to utteron nuptial nights. The second consecrated the month of September to hisfavorite and the third loved Antinous passionately and caused him to bedeified after death.

The most ample proof of the universality of the taste for young boysamong the Romans is found in the Epithalamium of Manilius and Julia, byCatullus, and it might be cause for surprise that this has escaped allthe philologists, were it not a constant thing that men frequentlyreading about these centuries fail to perceive the most palpable factsin their authors, just as they pass over the most striking phenomena ofnature without observing them. It appears, from this epithalamium, thatyoung men, before their marriage, had a favorite selected from amongtheir slaves and that this favorite was charged with the distribution ofnuts among his comrades, on the day, they in turn, treated him withcontempt and hooted him. Here follows an exact translation of thiscurious bit. The favorite could not refuse the nuts to the slaves whenby giving them it appeared that he owned that his master had put away hislove for hire.

"Lest longer mute tongue stays that In festal jest, from Fescennine, Nor yet deny their nuts to boys, He-Concubine! who learns in fine His lordling's love is fled.

Throw nuts to boys thou idle all He-Concubine! wast fain full long With nuts to play: now pleased as thrall Be thou to swell Talasios' throng He-Concubine throw nuts.

We know that naught save licit rites Be known to thee, but wedded wights No more deem lawful such delights. O Hymen Hymenaeus io, O Hymen Hymenaeus." (LXI. Burton, tr.)

The Christian religion strongly prohibits this love; the theologians putit among the sins which directly offend against the Holy Ghost. I havenot the honor of knowing just why this thing arouses his anger so muchmore than anything else; doubtless there are reasons. But the wrath ofthis honest person has not prevented the Christians from having their"pathici," just as they have in countries where they are authorized bythe reigning deities. We have even noticed that they are the priests ofthe Lord and especially the monks who practice this profession mostgenerally amongst us. The children of Loyola have acquired well-meritedrenown in this matter: when they painted "Pleasure" they never failed torepresent him wearing trousers. Those disciples of Joseph Calasanz whotook their places in the education of children, followed their footstepswith zeal and fervor. Lastly, the cardinals, who have a closeacquaintance with the Holy Ghost, are so prejudiced in favor of Greeklove that they have made it the fashion in the Holy City of Rome; thisleads me to wonder whether the Holy Ghost has changed His mind in regardto this matter and is no longer shocked by it; or whether the theologianswere not mistaken in assuming an aversion against sodomy which He neverhad. The cardinals who are on such familiar terms with him would knowbetter than to give all their days over to this pleasure if He reallyobjected to it.

I shall terminate this over-long note with an extract from a violentdiatribe against this love which Lucian puts into the mouth of Charicles.He is addressing Callicratidas, a passionate lover of young boys, withwhom he had gone to visit the temple of Venus at Cnidus.

"O Venus, my queen! to thee I call; lend me your aid while I plead yourcause. For everything over which you deign to shed, be it ever solittle, the persuasion of your charms, reaches absolute perfection, aboveall, erotic discourses need your presence, for you are their lawfulmother. In your womanhood, defend the cause of woman, and grant to mento remain men as they have been born. At the beginning of my discourse,I call as witness to the truth of my arguments the first mother of allcreated things, the source of all generation, the holy Nature of thisuniverse, who, gathering into one and uniting the elements of theworld--earth, air, fire and water--and mingling them together, gave lifeto everything that breathes. Knowing that we are a compound ofperishable matter, and that the span of life assigned to each of us wasshort, she contrived that the death of one should be the birth ofanother, and meted out to the dying, by way of compensation, the cominginto being of others, that by mutual succession we might live forever.But, as it was impossible for anything to be born from a single thingalone, she created two different sexes, and bestowed upon the male thepower of emitting semen, making the female the receptacle of generation.Having inspired both with mutual desires, she joined them together,ordaining, as a sacred law of necessity, that each sex should remainfaithful to its own nature--that the female should not play the maleunnaturally, nor the male degrade himself by usurping the functions ofthe female. Thus intercourse of men with women has preserved the humanrace by never-ending succession: no man can boast of having been createdby man alone; two venerable names are held in equal honor, and menrevere their mother equally with their father. At first, when men werefilled with heroic thoughts, they reverenced those virtues which bringus nearer to the Gods, obeyed the laws of Nature, and, united to womenof suitable age, became the sires of noble offspring. But, by degrees,human life, degenerating from that nobility of sentiment, sank to thelowest depths of pleasure, and began to carve out strange and corruptways in the search after enjoyment. Then sensuality, daring all,violated the laws of Nature herself. Who was it who first looked uponthe male as female, violating him by force or villainous persuasion?One sex entered one bed, and men had the shamelessness to look at oneanother without a blush for what they did or for what they submitted to,and, sowing seed, as it were, upon barren rocks, they enjoyed ashort-lived pleasure at the cost of undying shame.

"Some pushed their cruelty so far as to outrage Nature with thesacrilegious knife, and, after depriving men of their virility, found inthem the height of pleasure. These miserable and unhappy creatures, thatthey may the longer serve the purposes of boys, are stunted in theirmanhood, and remain a doubtful riddle of a double sex, neither preservingthat boyhood in which they were born, nor possessing that manhood whichshould be theirs. The bloom of their youth withers away in a prematureold age: while yet boys they suddenly become old, without any interval ofmanhood. For impure sensuality, the mistress of every vice, devising oneshameless pleasure after another, insensibly plunges into unmentionabledebauchery, experienced in every form of brutal lust. "Whereas, if eachwould abide by the laws prescribed by Providence, we should be satisfiedwith intercourse with women, and our lives would be undefiled by shamefulpractices. Consider the animals, which cannot corrupt by innateviciousness, how they observe the law of Nature in all its purity.He-lions do not lust after he-lions, but, in due season, passion excitesthem towards the females of their species: the bull that rules the herdmounts cows, and the ram fills the whole flock of ewes with the seed ofgeneration. Again, boars mate with sows, he-wolves with shewolves,neither the birds that fly through the air, nor the fish that inhabit thedeep, or any living creatures upon earth desire male intercourse, butamongst them the laws of Nature remain unbroken. But you men, who boastidly of your wisdom, but are in reality worthless brutes, what strangedisease provokes you to outrage one another unnaturally? What blindfolly fills your minds, that you commit the two-fold error of avoidingwhat you should pursue, and pursuing what you should avoid? If each andall were to pursue such evil courses, the race of human beings wouldbecome extinct on earth. And here comes in that wonderful Socraticargument, whereby the minds of boys, as yet unable to reason clearly, aredeceived, for a ripe intellect could not be misled. These followers ofSocrates pretend to love the soul alone, and, being ashamed to professlove for the person, call themselves lovers of virtue, whereat I haveoften been moved to laughter. How comes it, O grave philosophers, thatyou hold in such slight regard a man who, during a long life, has givenproofs of merit, and of that virtue which old age and white hairs become?How is it that the affections of the philosophers are all in a flutterafter the young; who cannot yet make up their minds which path of life totake? Is there a law, then, that all ugliness is to be condemned asvice, and that everything that is beautiful is to be extolled withoutfurther examination? But, according to Homer, the great interpreter oftruth--'One man is meaner than another in looks, but God crowns his wordswith beauty, and his hearers gaze upon him with delight, while he speaksunfalteringly with winning modesty, and is conspicuous amongst theassembled folk, who look upon him as a God when he walks through thecity.' And again he says: 'Your beauteous form is destitute ofintelligence; the wise Ulysses is praised more highly than the handsomeNireus.' How then comes it that the love of wisdom, justice, and theother virtues, which are the heritage of the full-grown man, possess noattraction for you, while the beauty of boys excites the most vehementpassion! What! should one love Phoedrus, remembering Lysias, whom hebetrayed? Could one love the beauty of Alcibiades, who mutilated thestatues of the Gods, and, in the midst of a debauch, betrayed themysteries of the rites of Eleusis? Who would venture to declare himselfhis admirer, after Athens was abandoned, and Decelea fortified by theenemy--the admirer of one whose sole aim in life was tyranny? But, asthe divine Plato says, as long as his chin was beardless, he was belovedby all; but, when he passed from boyhood to manhood, when his imperfectintelligence had reached its maturity, he was hated by all. Why, then,giving modest names to immodest sentiments, do men call personal beautyvirtue, being in reality lovers of youth rather than lovers of wisdom?However, it is not my intention to speak evil of distinguished men. But,to descend from graver topics to the mere question of enjoyment, I willprove that connection with women is far more enjoyable than connectionwith boys. In the first place, the longer enjoyment lasts, the moredelight it affords; too rapid pleasure passes quickly away, and it isover before it is thoroughly appreciated; but, if it lasts, it is therebyenhanced. Would to heaven that grudging Destiny had allotted us a longerlease of life, and that we could enjoy perpetual health without anysorrow to spoil our pleasure; then would our life be one continual feast.But, since jealous Fortune has grudged us greater blessings, thoseenjoyments that last the longest are the sweetest. Again, a woman, frompuberty to middle age, until the last wrinkles furrow her face, is worthembracing and fit for intercourse; and, even though the prime of herbeauty be past, her experience can speak more eloquently than the love ofboys.

"I should consider anyone who attempted to have intercourse with a youthof twenty years to be the slave of unnatural lust. The limbs of such,like those of a man, are hard and coarse; their chins, formerly sosmooth, are rough and bristly, and their well-grown thighs are disfiguredwith hairs. As for their other parts, I leave those of you who haveexperience to decide. On the other hand, a woman's charms are alwaysenhanced by an attractive complexion, flowing locks, dark as hyacinths,stream down her back and adorn her shoulders, or fall over her ears andtemples, more luxuriant than the parsley in the fields. The rest of herperson, without a hair upon it, shines more brilliantly than amber orSidonian crystal. Why should we not pursue those pleasures which aremutual, which cause equal enjoyment to those who receive and to those whoafford them? For we are not, like animals, fond of solitary lives, but,united in social relations, we consider these pleasures sweeter, andthose pains easier to bear, which we share with others. Hence, a commontable was instituted, the mediator of friendship. When we minister tothe wants of the belly, we do not drink Thasian wine, or consume costlyfood by ourselves alone, but in company: for our pleasures and enjoymentsare increased when shared with others. In like manner, the intercourseof men with women causes enjoyment to each in turn, and both are alikedelighted; unless we accept the judgment of Tiresias, who declared thatthe woman's pleasure was twice as great as the man's. I think that thosewho are not selfish should not consider how they may best secure thewhole enjoyment for themselves, but should share what they have withothers. Now, in the case of boys, no one would be mad enough to assertthat this is the case; for, while he who enjoys their person reaches theheight of pleasure--at least, according to his way of thinking--theobject of his passion at first feels pain, even to tears, but when, byrepetition, the pain becomes less keen, while he no longer hurts him, hewill feel no pleasure himself. To mention something still more curious--as is fitting within the precincts of Venus--you may make the same useof a woman as of a boy, and thereby open a double avenue to enjoyment;but the male can never afford the same enjoyment as the female.

"Therefore, if you are convinced by my arguments, let us, men and women,keep ourselves apart, as if a wall divided us; but, if it is becoming formen to have intercourse with men, for the future let women haveintercourse with women. Come, O new generation, inventor of strangepleasures! As you have devised new methods to satisfy male lust, grantthe same privilege to women; let them have intercourse with one anotherlike men, girding themselves with the infamous instruments of lust, anunholy imitation of a fruitless union; in a word, let our wanton Tribadsreign unchecked, and let our women's chambers be disgraced byhermaphrodites. Far better that a woman, in the madness of her lust,should usurp the nature of a man, than that man's noble nature should beso degraded as to play the woman!"

The theologians class this species of lascivious feeling with pollutionwhich is complete when it produces a result. The Holy Scripture tells usof Onan, son of Judas, grandson of Jacob, and husband of Thamar, who wasslain by the Lord because he spilled his semen, "he poured his semen uponthe ground." We may be reproached, perhaps, for citing the Holy Bibletoo frequently, but that book contains the knowledge of salvation, andthose who wish to be saved should not fail to study it with assiduity.That this study has occupied a good part of our life, we admit, and wehave always found that study profitable. To vigorous minds thatadmission may seem ridiculous, but we are writing only for pious souls,and they will willingly applaud this courageous profession of our piety.

The theologians have also classified onanism and pollution among the sinsagainst the Holy Ghost, and this being the case, there is no being in theworld who has been sinned against so often. A medium indulgence in thissin furnished the pleasure of a queen, the severity of one Lucretia doesnot repel a thousand Tarquins. Men with vivid imaginations create forthemselves a paradise peopled with the most beautiful houris, moreseductive than those of Mahomet; Lycoris had a beautiful body but it wasunfeeling; the imagination of her lover pictured her as falling beforehis caresses, he led her by the hand over pressed flowers, through athick grove and along limpid streams; in that sweet reverie his lifeslipped by.

In the minds of the theologians pollution is synonymous with allpleasures with persons of the opposite or the same sex, which result in awaste of the elixir of life. In this sense, love between woman and womanis pollution and Sappho is a sinner against the Holy Ghost.

(Notwithstanding), however (these caprices of the third person of thetrinity) I cannot see why pleasure should be regulated, or why a womanwho has surveyed all the charms of a young girl of eighteen years shouldgive herself up to the rude embraces of a man. What comparisons can bemade between those red lips, that mouth which breathes pleasure for thefirst time, those snowy and purplous cheeks whose velvet smoothness islike the Venus flower, half in bloom, that new-born flesh whichpalpitates softly with desire and voluptuousness, that hand which youpress so delicately, those round thighs, those plastic buttocks, thatvoice sweet and touching,--what comparison can be made between all thisand pronounced features, rough beard, hard breast, hairy body, and thestrong disagreeable voice of man? Juvenal has wonderfully expended allhis bile in depicting, as hideous scenes, these mysteries of the BonaDea, where the young and beautiful Roman women, far from the eyes of men,give themselves up to mutual caresses. Juvenal has painted the eyes ofthe Graces with colors which are proper to the Furies; his tableau,moreover, revolts one instead of doing good.

The only work of Sappho's which remains to us is an ode written to one ofher loved ones and from it we may judge whether the poetess merited herreputation. It has been translated into all languages; Catullus put itinto Latin and Boileau into French. Here follows an imitation of that ofCatullus:

Peer of a God meseemeth he, Nay passing Gods (and that can be!) Who all the while sits facing thee Sees thee and hears Thy low sweet laughs which (ah me!) daze Mine every sense, and as I gaze Upon thee (Lesbia!) o'er me strays

My tongue is dulled, limbs adown Flows subtle flame; with sound its own Rings either ear, and o'er are strown Mine eyes with night.

(LI. Burton, tr.)

After that we should never again exhort the ministers and moralists toinveigh against love of women for women; never was the interest of menfound to be so fully in accord with the precepts of divine law.

Here I should like to speak of the brides of the Lord; but I remember"The Nun" of Diderot, and my pen falls from my hand. Oh, who would dareto touch a subject handled by Diderot?

V.

Giton venait de la deflorer, et de remporter une victoire sanglante. Giton the victor had won a not bloodless victory.

All people have regarded virginity as something sacred, and God has sohonored it that he willed that his son be born of a virgin, fecundated,however, by the Holy Ghost. Still, it appears problematical whether theVirgin Mary, complete virgin that she was, did not have the same pleasureas those who are not virgins, when she received the divine annunciation.Father Sanchez has discussed the question very fully "whether the VirginMary 'spent' in copulation with the Holy-Ghost," unhappily, he decided inthe negative, and I have too much veneration for Father Sanchez not tosubmit to his decision; but because of it, I am vexed with the VirginMary and the Holy Ghost.

Notwithstanding this, the daughters of the people of the Lord were notcontent to remain virgins; a state of being which, at bottom has not muchto recommend it. The daughter of Jephtha before being immolated for thesake of the Lord, demanded of her father a reprieve of two months inwhich to weep for her virginity upon the mountains of Gelboe; it seems itshould not have taken so long had she had nothing to regret. Ruth hadrecourse to the quickest method when she wished to cease being a virgin;she simply went and lay down upon the bed with Boaz. The spirit of Godhas deemed it worth while to transmit this story to us, for theinstruction of virgins from century to century.

The pagan Gods thought highly of maidenheads, they often took them andalways, they set aside the virgins for themselves. The Phtyian, fromwhose organ Apollo was foreordained to come, proved to be only a virgin;the spirit of God did not communicate itself to anyone who had ever beensullied by contact with a mortal. It was to virgins that the sacredfires of Vesta were entrusted, and the violation of their virginity was acapital crime which all Rome regarded as a scourge from wrathful heaven.

The Sybils lived and died virgins; in addressing the Cumaean Sybil,AEneas never failed to bestow that title upon her.

Most of the immortals have preserved their virginity, Diana, Minerva, etcet. But what is the most astonishing is that the companions of Venusand Amor, the most lovable of all divinities, the Graces, were alsovirgins. Juno became a virgin again every year, by bathing in the watersof a magic fountain; that must have rendered Jupiter's duties ratheronerous.

There are some reasons for this passion of mankind for maidenheads. Itis so wonderful to give the first lessons of voluptuousness to a pure andinnocent heart, to feel under one's hand the first palpitations of thevirginal breasts which arouses unknown delights, to dry the first tearsof tenderness, to inspire that first mixture of fear and hope, of vaguedesires and expectant inquietude; whoever has never had that satisfactionhas missed the most pleasurable of all the delights of love. But takenin that sense, virginity is rather a moral inclination, as Buffon says,than a physical matter, and nothing can justify the barbarous precautionsagainst amorous theft which were taken by unnatural fathers and jealoushusbands.

In those unhappy countries which are bent under oppression, in thosecountries where heaven shows its heat in the beauty of the sex, andwhere beauty is only an object of speculation for avid parents; in suchcountries, I say, they resort to the most odious methods for preservingthe virginity of the young and beautiful daughters who are destined to besold like common cattle. They put a lock over the organ of pleasure andnever permit it to be opened except when it is strictly necessary forcarrying out those animal functions for which nature destined them.

The locks of chastity were long known in Europe; the Italians are accusedwith this terrible invention. Nevertheless, it is certain that they wereused upon men, at least, in the time of the first Roman emperors.Juvenal, in his satire against women, VI, says: "If the singers pleasethem there is no need for locks of chastity for those who have sold theirvoices to the praetors, who keep them."

If pleased by the song of the singer employed by the praetor No fibula long will hold out, free, the actor will greet her.

Christianity, most spiritual, most mystical of ancient religions,attempts to make out a great case for celibacy. Its founder nevermarried, although the Pharisees reproached him for frequenting gay women,and had, perhaps, some reason for so doing. Jesus showed a particularaffection for Mary Magdalen, to the point of exciting the jealousy ofMartha, who complained that her sister passed her time in conversationwith Jesus and left her with all the housework to do. "Mary has chosenthe better part," said the Savior. A good Christian must not doubt thatthe colloquies were always spiritual.

St. Paul counseled virginity and most of the apostolic fathers practicedit. Among others, St. Jerome lived his whole life among women and neverlost his purity. He answered his enemies who reproached him with hisvery great intimacy with the Saintly Sisters, that the irrefutable proofof his chastity was that he stank. That stinking of St. Jerome, which isnot a veritable article of faith in the Church, is, however, an object ofpious belief; and my readers will very gladly assent to it.

When the Christian clergy wishes to form a body of doctrines to besubmitted to by all the common people it thinks that by separating itsinterests and those of the common people as far as possible it musttighten those ropes by which it binds its fellow citizens. Also the Popewho was the most jealous of ecclesiastical power and the one who abusedit most, Hildebrand, rigorously prohibited the marriage of priests andenunciated the most terrible warnings against those who did not retaintheir celibacy. However, although neither priests nor monks werepermitted to marry, the epithet "virgins" cannot be justly applied to allpriests and all monks without exception. Nor shall I repeat here thenaughty pleasantries of Erasmus, of Boccaccio, and all the others,against the monks; without doubt maliciousness has developed more"satyrical" traits that they have brought out; beyond that, I havenothing to say.

VI.

Alors une vielle. . . . Finally an old woman . . .

The question here has to do with a procurers or go-between. Thatprofession has gradually fallen into discredit by I know not whatfatality, which befalls the most worthy things. Cervantes the onlyphilosophic author Spain has produced, wanted that calling to bevenerated in cities above all others. And truly, when one thinks howmuch finesse is necessary to pursue that profession with success, whenone considers that those who practice that truly liberal art are therepositories of the most important as well as the most sacred secrets,one would never fail to have the greatest respect for them. Thetranquillity of homes, the civil state of persons they hold at theirdiscretion, and still, though they drink in insults, though they endureabuse, very rarely do these beings, true stoics, compromise those whohave confided in them.

In their Mercury, the ancients realized their beau ideal or archetypeof go-between which they called; in vulgar language "pimp". That God,as go-between for Jupiter, was often involved in the most hazardousenterprises, such as abducting Io, who was guarded by Argus of thehundred eyes; Mercury I say, was the God of concord, or eloquence,and of mystery. Except to inspire them with friendly feeling and kindaffections, Mercury never went among mortals. Touched by his wand,venomous serpents closely embraced him. Listening to him, Achillesforgot his pride, extended hospitality to Priam and permitted him to takeaway the body of Hector. The ferocious Carthaginians were softenedthrough the influence of this God of peace, and received the Trojans infriendship. Mercury it was who gathered men into society and substitutedsocial customs for barbarism. He invented the lyre and was the master ofAmphion, who opened the walls of Thebes by the charm of his singing.Mercury or Hermes gave the first man knowledge; but it was enveloped in amysterious veil which it was never permitted the profane to penetrate,which signifies that all that he learned from God, concerning amorousadventures, should be wrapped in profound silence. How beautiful allthese allegories are! And how true! How insipid life would be withoutthese mysterious liaisons, by which Nature carries out her designs,eluding the social ties, without breaking them! Disciples of Mercury, Isalute you, whatever be your sex; to your discretion, to your persuasivearts are confided our dearest interests, the peace of mind of husbands,the happiness of lovers, the reputation of women, the legitimacy ofchildren. Without you, this desolated earth would prove to be, inreality, a vale of tears; the young and beautiful wife united to decrepithusband, would languish and grow weak, like the lonely flower which thesun's rays never touch. Thus did Mexence bind in thine indissolublebands the living and the dead.

Fate, however, has often avenged the go-betweens on account of themisunderstandings from which they suffer at the hands of the vulgar.Otho opened the way to the empire of the world by his services as ago-between for Nero. And the go-betweens of princes, and even ofprincesses, are always found in the finest situations. Even Otho did notlose all his rights; Nero exiled him with a commission of honor, "becausehe was caught in adultery with his own wife, Poppaea." "Uxoris moechuscoeperate esse suae" (Suet. Otho, chap. 111), said malicious gossip atRome.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

To the scholar contemplating an exhaustive study of Petronius, themasterly bibliography compiled by Gaselee is indispensable, and thoseof my readers who desire to pursue the subject are referred to it.The following is a list of editions, translations, criticisms andmiscellaneous publications and authors from which I have derived benefitin the long and pleasant hours devoted to Petronius.

Cardinals prejudiced in favor of Greek loveFierce morality, inimical to all the pleasures of lifeHardouin on homosexuality in priestsReligions responsible for the most abominable actionsRemarkable resemblance to each other are the Bible and HomerStinking of St. JeromeWars were as much enterprises for ravishing women